ained that he
was in love with a girl whose people disapproved of him, and she was
being kept almost a prisoner in the house in question. At night he was
sometimes able to get a few words with her after dinner, she mounting a
ladder and talking to him from the top of the garden wall.

"One of these nights," Little concluded, "we're going to make a bolt
for it. By Jove!" he suddenly broke off. "You're the very man; you'll
help, of course."

"'Elp?" said Bindle; "o' course I'll 'elp. If yer want to be made
un'appy that's your affair. If yer wants me to 'elp to make yer
un'appy, that's my affair."

At this moment there was a faint whistle from farther down the road.

"I must be off," said Little. "Come round and see me on Sunday, and
I'll tell you all about it."

The next Sunday night Bindle heard the whole story. Dick Little was
desperately in love with Ethel Knob-Kerrick, the daughter of Lady
Knob-Kerrick, whose discomfiture at the Barton Bridge Temperance Fete
had been due to his tampering with the lemonade. Lady Knob-Kerrick had
come to know of clandestine meetings, and henceforth her daughter had
been practically a prisoner, never being allowed out of her mother's
sight or that of Miss Strint, who, although in sympathy with the
lovers, was too much afraid of Lady Knob-Kerrick to render them any
assistance.

"So I'm going to bolt with her," said Dick Little.

"And very nice too," remarked Bindle, as he gazed admiringly at the
photograph of an extremely pretty brunette with expressive eyes and a
tilted chin.

"Funny things, women," continued Bindle. "Yer think yer've got a
bloomin' peach, when squash! and there is only the stone and a little
juice left in yer 'and. Funny things, women! She'll probably nag yer
into an asylum or the Blue Boar or----"

"Shut up, Bindle!" There was a hard note in Dick Little's voice.

"All right, sir, all right," said Bindle patiently. "I'd 'ave said the
same meself when I was a-courtin' me little red-'eaded blossom. Funny
things, women!

"If it ain't rude, sir," Bindle continued after a pause, "'ave yer got
an 'ome ready? 'Cos when yer get a bird yer sort o' got to get a cage,
an' if that cage ain't gold, wi' bits o' gold sort o' lyin' about,
well, there'll be some feathers flyin', an' they won't be 'ers. A
woman wot ain't got money makes a man moult pretty quick. Yer'll
excuse me, sir, but I'm an old warrior at this 'ere game."

"I've bought a practice in